Monday, March 15, 2010

Review #63: The Cinder-Eyed Cats

Lily (age 7): "The Cinder-Eyed Cats."Dad: What is the first thing you think of when you look at this cover? Does it give you any certain feelings?Isaac (age 11): The cats are looking at you strangely. You can't take your eyes off them.Gracie (age 9): You get nervous. Their eyes are disturbing.Dad: I love the eyes.Lily: Me too.Isaac: They have flaming yellow eyes.Gracie: They are looking at me! The cats are waiting for me to blink so they can do something to me.Lily: The illustrator draws cool.Gracie: Very realistic.Lily: He draws the coolest of the cools. It is so so so so so so so realistic.Dad: Do you know what other books Eric Rohmann made? You will be shocked.Gracie: What?Dad: There's another one of my favorites. He did "My Friend Rabbit." You know the one where the rabbit throws the plane and it gets stuck in a tree?Isaac: Huh!!! He did that? That's a linocut one...Dad: Yep - wood cut. So Eric Rohmann is good at more than one style.Lily: The pictures are just so awesome.Gracie: I love the pictures.Dad: Tell us what "The Cinder-Eyed Cats" is about...Isaac: There's a boy who gets into this flying boat, and he goes to an island.Gracie: The Wondrous Island of Cats.Lily: They are big, giant, puma cats.Isaac: I think they are mountain lions. No - ligers! They're ligers! Don't they look like ligers? They've got to be ligers.Lily: Gracie doesn't know what a liger is.Isaac: A liger is when a lion and a tiger get... married... and have ligers for kids.Dad: I don't think they get "married." But we don't need to go into that now...Gracie: Yes we do. We need to know this.Dad: What we need, is to keep this review rated "G."Isaac: Isn't there such a thing as a Zorse too?Lily: Yeah, there are zorses.Dad: A zebra-horse mix...Gracie: Everyone needs to know the story of ligers and zorses. It's just like a Golden Doodle. A golden retriever and a poodle mixed.Dad: Why "Doodle"? It should be Golden... Roodle?Gracie: Nope. Doodle. Julia has one.Dad: Anyway -- back to our book...Gracie: It's about a boy, and he went to an island... the Magic Island of Liger-ness.Isaac: Then he builds this giant fish out of sand -- it looks like a huge salmon. Then at night, the sand fish salmon opens his eyes and starts flying.Lily: The cats make the fish alive by their eyes.Dad: You think it was the cats that brought the sand fish to life?Lily: Yeah! Their eyes.Dad: They do look like magic eyes.Lily: Yeah, they seem strange.Gracie: Their eyes just keep staring at you! It freaks me out. Here... (turns book) ...stare at Lily.Isaac: Then at night all these other fishes start flying!Lily: They do it at night because that's when the pumas are awake.Gracie: They are ligers.Lily: Whatever.Gracie: The fishes dance in the air on the Magic Island of Liger-ness.Isaac: There are dancing tunas and sardines.Lily: They circle around and around.Gracie: They all dance around the fire.Lily: Even big giant whales fly, which looks really cool.Dad: The boy in this book seems to be friends with the cats.Gracie: Well, why would he come to the island if he didn't know the cats already?Dad: So you think he's been to the island before?Gracie: Oh yeah.Lily: They are friendly cats.Gracie: They are not dangerous.Lily: This cat should be named "Lemon."Gracie: I think the boy goes to the island every night.Isaac: Every night he'll have different adventures.Gracie: Maybe the next time he could build a sand turtle, then all these turtles could come alive and fly.Isaac: I would build a sand dragon!Dad: Did you guys know this book changed my life?Isaac: It did?Dad: I saw this cover years ago, and it was at that moment I knew I wanted to be an illustrator. I was in a library, reading a magazine -- I looked up and those cats were staring at me from across the room. I looked down, then back up, and they were still staring at me. I had to walk across the room and pick up this book. I had to look at it.Gracie: Like they were saying "Open it, already!"Dad: And I was smitten by the children's book bug. These cats were screaming at me with their eyes. And everything changed. That was the moment I knew -- this is what I want to do.Isaac: I love that front cover too. I'd like to have that picture hanging up in my room.

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We love the written word. We love art. Children's books are a place where those two things come together beautifully. Here at Bookie Woogie we pick our favorite books, review them, and create some accompanying fan art. We invite you to participate too: please chime in with your thoughts and comments!